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GOP media firm SGM spreads wings

The upstart GOP consulting firm that guided Rand Paul, Todd Akin and other lightning-rod conservatives in their insurgent campaigns plans a major expansion in 2013, strategists with the group told POLITICO.

The Ohio-based Strategy Group for Media, already a large-scale TV firm, is branching out into other fields of political consulting by acquiring two other vendors: the Missouri-based research company John Hancock & Associates and the voter contact firm Front Porch Strategies.

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The companies will relaunch as part of the Strategy Group family with new names: the Strategy Group for Research and the Strategy Group for Phones. The SGM umbrella will also include a digital branch, Strategy Group for New Media.

In an industry where vendors tend to focus on a narrow specialty — TV ads, media buying and placement, research, et cetera — the acquisitions represent an unusual move to centralize numerous campaign functions under a single corporate roof. The expansion will grow the SGM staff to more than 50 employees, an exceptionally large size for a political consulting firm.

“With the complement of phones, new media and research, it places us on the cutting edge of communications,” said Rex Elsass, SGM’s founder and CEO. “I think we’ll continue to grow when we have the opportunity to lay out the businesses that we’re in the process of building and acquiring.”

SGM drew national attention in the 2012 cycle when it stood by Akin, the embattled Missouri Senate candidate, as Washington Republicans urged the congressman to drop his challenge to Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill. At the time, D.C.-based strategists criticized SGM for refusing to cut ties with Akin after his controversial comments about “legitimate rape,” which national Republicans blame for costing them a Senate seat.

But the firm has a much longer and more diverse client list than that, advising dozens of members of Congress, as well as Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, Ohio Gov. John Kasich and a host of other Buckeye State Republicans.

Still, since SGM draws much of its business from outside of Washington — and writes, films and places its TV and radio ads without help from other vendors — the company can afford to get behind candidates shunned by the establishment. Last year, that was Akin. In 2010, SGM produced media for Rand Paul’s successful long shot Kentucky Senate bid.

In theory, the firm’s move into other areas of the campaign aside from TV will make SGM even more self-sufficient and harder to push around.

PJ Wenzel, the voter-contact consultant coming on board from Front Porch Strategies, said part of the appeal of joining forces was that they already work “for a lot of the same candidates — conservative candidates and causes.”

“It’s traditionally pretty much accepted that the first people you hire on a political campaign are your pollster, your general consultant and your media strategist. Phones, direct mail, all your new media kinds of things — those are second-tier priorities,” Wenzel said. “[This deal] gets us talking with candidates a lot earlier, which I think translates to smarter, more well-thought-out campaigns. You don’t have one section of a campaign fighting against another for budget priorities.”

Said SGM President Nick Everhart said the goal was to put more services at the disposal of candidates: “We are growing and reshaping our firm to give our clients the advantage.”